Another day, another Micro VC fund
Marc Andreesseen recently commented on Twitter that "There are definitely too many new small angel funds".
He is right. There are a ton of these and most are indistinguishable from one another. To make things worse, most are bad at getting their portfolio companies follow-on financing. Of course, this doesn't hold for the top decile micro-VCs, but the problem there is every fund thinks they're in that bunch.
But all of this left us wondering --- Aren't micro-VCs a great thing for mid- and large-VC funds? The micro-VCs invest in lots of risky, fledgling companies. Most will be orphaned or die but a few will be de-risked and need money to scale and that is where larger VCs can step in for the Series A, B, etc.
What are we missing?
For those of you at larger VC funds, has the investment activity of micro-VCs been a net positive, negative or neutral for you from a dealflow perspective? Send me an email and let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Anand
CEO | Co-founder | Customer Service
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Get 25% off. Alan Patricof of Greycroft, Peter Barris of NEA and Leon Black of Apollo Global will be a few of the speakers at what is shaping up to be a great event. If you'd like to register, use the code " CBSCBINSIGHTS14" to get 25% off your registration. It's insanely reasonably priced given the caliber of content and speakers they have. Register here.
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Land grab hits full swing. Between Rakuten's $900M acquisition of Viber and Line's rumored upcoming IPO, the global mobile messaging market is moving quickly. In the mix are a number of venture-backed startups backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark and Union Square Ventures. See which stages and geographies are seeing the most mobile messaging deals here.
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Silicon Valley hubris or a prescient move? This week, Hampton Creek Foods raised $23M to continue its mission of producing plant-based food alternatives. And they're not the only food & beverage startup to attract VC money recently. See the full brief for financing trends to the food & beverage sector and a few active investors including the very bullish Khosla Ventures.
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CB Insider Posts
The following research is only available to paid subscribers with CB Insider access:
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From FireEye to Trusteer. Venture capital investments to cybersecurity firms have been climbing partly due to some large exits in the space. Together, the top 10 VC-backed cybsersecurity companies saw exits for over $11B in aggregate value at the time of exit. Sequoia Capital leads the pack with 3 of the top 10 largest exits since the start of 2012. See which firms made the list in the full brief.
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Ephemeral apps are hot (and getting crowded fast). A new generation of apps now cater to a desire for anonymous secret sharing, off-the-record messaging and impermanent media sharing. And based on a mining of our App Store rankings data, Snapchat and Whisper dominate among ephemeral apps, but Secret and Telegram are rising fast. See the mobile app data analysis for ephemeral apps.
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7 things to read this week
A selection of 7 articles that the CB Insights team found entertaining, engaging or thought-provoking.
DataBall - Grantland on how the NBA could be on the verge of understanding the value of every single movement on the court
The formation of love on Facebook - When you fall in love, this is what the Facebook data science team sees.
Cheap words - George Packer takes on Amazon in a thorough 13-page report.
Start-up America: Our best hope - Thomas Friedman on the contrast between limitless imagination in Silicon Valley and paralysis in Washington.
Is social networking making us dumber?- A team of scientists investigates if networks help us imitate analytical thought processes from our peers.
Big breakthroughs come in your late 30s - "Genius, it seems, happens when a seasoned mind sees a problem with fresh eyes."
What exactly is an entrepreneur? - The Economist dives into the traits and characteristics that help define an entrepreneur |
Our Last Two Newsletters
In case you missed them:
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